Chapter 37: I Don’t Like It, Change It
After a brief moment of darkness, Xu Zhi’s consciousness returned to her original body.
She felt a little regretful that she couldn’t see how the people outside reacted or responded after seeing her spirit body dissipate—but it didn’t matter. She’d find out next time she went out.
Xu Zhi had deliberately acted that way to leave a deep impression on the Special Operations Division, to make them more alert and cautious around her. Ideally, they’d begin suspecting her connection to the “Xu Zhi,” since the spirit body resembled her so closely.
As long as she became associated with Cloud City, Xu Zhi believed they would definitely take her seriously.
That way, she wouldn’t have to “start from scratch” every time she entered the outside world, figuring out how to contact extraordinary factions. They would come to her instead.
Of course, she’d considered the risks. For example, if her spirit body was discovered outside, the Federation might immediately detain her—rendering her useless.
It wasn’t unlikely. In fact, it was quite probable.
Given the Federation’s tense attitude toward Cloud City, once they realized she might be someone from within, they would place extreme importance on her, trying to extract any intel about the city. But after witnessing her spirit body vanish and seeing her reappear again later, they were unlikely to threaten her with death.
Next time, she could just invest the bare minimum amount of crystal cores, and when they tried to capture her, she’d simply vanish. That way, the Federation wouldn’t likely try to imprison her again as a means of forcing her to talk.
After she disappeared a second time, the Federation’s attitude would probably shift to negotiation—whether it be threats or bribes, or even using supernatural abilities to make her speak—they would definitely try to make contact and talk to her.
Another issue she considered was if her randomly-spawned spirit body ended up in a place where it lost its freedom. Worse still, what if someone from the Federation knocked her out and used extreme methods to extract information? She’d have to guard against that too.
From this, a bold idea formed in Xu Zhi’s mind.
The first thing she did after returning to her body was record the random spawn location.
[Recording this location costs: 10 cores]
“Hiss—”
Xu Zhi sucked in a sharp breath.
“That’s way too expensive!”
It cost more than the number of cores she had used to go there in the first place!
And of course, it just so happened to cost exactly ten—the total number of cores she had left in her warehouse.
“Did you peek into my inventory?”
[Costs vary based on location; the more distant and mysterious, the higher the core cost. Ten is not unusual.]
The narrator replied calmly.
Grudgingly, Xu Zhi clicked to confirm the recording. A pixelated photo appeared in the records screen, showing the front of that office building.
After that, she opened a newly added game feature: the suggestion box.
[It’s too restrictive that spirit bodies can’t change appearance and only have one fixed look. I don’t like it. Change it.]
That’s what Xu Zhi wrote.
She even intentionally used unfriendly wording, with a bit of arrogant, nitpicking tone—just to see how the game would respond.
This was also part of her bold plan.
If the Federation didn’t treat spirit bodies with caution, she could just change her appearance, right?
After clicking “Submit,” a line of text floated on the screen:
[Suggestion received. A reply will be given within five minutes.]
“That fast?”
Xu Zhi expected either a rejection or an approval, but less than three minutes later, the game replied:
[New feature added: Players can now spend 1 core to create a spirit body with a completely new appearance from the spirit body interface.]
“…”
Xu Zhi fell into silence.
Although she’d guessed based on past experience that she’d likely get what she wanted, she hadn’t expected it to be this easy.
This was beyond indulgent—Not even a biological daughter would be treated so well!
But fine. With this, her worries were gone. Now she could go wild with her spirit body.
She thought for a bit, then tried submitting another suggestion.
[I don’t have enough familiars right now. Can I just get more directly?]
Soon, the reply came—but this time, not as she hoped.
[Please strengthen your current familiars to unlock additional familiar slots.]
“Guess there is a bottom line.”
Xu Zhi tried a few more test suggestions and finally confirmed: when it came to power progression, the game wouldn’t compromise. She still had to work hard for that.
But for other features, the game was willing to provide convenience, making her experience more comfortable.
It felt oddly like indulgence—but not absolute indulgence. It still encouraged her to work hard.
From the initial crude system to this one she had to gradually refine herself, the whole thing reeked of inexperience.
“What exactly are you?”
Xu Zhi looked at the game console and asked.
But it didn’t respond—just continued carrying out her commands like usual.
“…Fine.”
Xu Zhi gave up on digging deeper. The most important issue right now was: she had zero cores left.
She was broke, and that meant she had to urge her familiars to work harder. If they didn’t, how was she supposed to live a good life?
Thanks to a few days of accumulation, her falcon familiar, Zhen, had already reached level 14—just one step from 15. This was because Xu Zhi had fed it that black fruit.
For now, her land-based forces—Yi and Gouzi—were enough. But since Zhen was her only flying unit, it had to catch up quickly. That’s why she gave it the fruit.
Now, both Gouzi and Zhen were on the verge of hitting level 15, and Yi had just reached level 21.
After reaching level 20, Yi’s growth rate slowed down again. But what frustrated Xu Zhi most was that even after feeding it so many [Blade]-type cores, its [Evolution] level hadn’t increased.
Same for her.
Why was [Evolution] so hard to improve?
Xu Zhi stared at the screen, watching Yi head toward the deep forest, grumbling in her mind.
Before it reached level 20, Xu Zhi had avoided sending it into the dense forest, even though she was curious about the mutated creatures there. She knew better—there’s always someone stronger out there. That forest full of animals might be home to some terrifyingly gifted ones.
Now that Yi could protect itself, Xu Zhi finally felt confident enough to send it to explore.
The mutated creatures in the deep forest were easily double those in the city, and it was way easier to find cores.
But just as Yi prepared to attack a group of monkeys near the mountain’s edge, something unexpected happened. After sensing its presence, the monkeys—terrified—did something totally unforeseen.
One of them, seemingly the leader, tossed a handful of cores toward Yi—probably around a dozen—and instead of running or attacking, it led the other monkeys to tremble in place, like they were… surrendering?
